Introduction to Azure Storage Accounts

Azure Storage offers a highly scalable, highly available, secure, and durable cloud storage solution for a wide variety of data. A storage account provides a unique namespace in Azure for your data, into which all Azure Storage objects are stored. The type of storage account you create depends on the needs of your application.

Key services accessible through a storage account include:

  • Azure Blobs (Object Storage)
  • Azure Files (Managed File Shares)
  • Azure Queues (Messaging)
  • Azure Tables (NoSQL Key-Value Store)

Storage Account Types

Azure provides several types of storage accounts, each optimized for different scenarios:

  • General-purpose v2 (GPv2) accounts: These are the recommended general-purpose storage accounts that support all the latest features and are based on the latest hardware. They provide access to Blob, File, Queue, and Table storage.
  • BlockBlobStorage accounts: Optimized for block blobs and append blobs with low latency and high transaction rates. They support hot and cool access tiers for blobs.
  • FileStorage accounts: Optimized for premium file shares. They use Solid State Drives (SSDs) for low latency and high throughput.
  • StorageV2 (general-purpose) accounts: An older generation of general-purpose accounts. While still supported, GPv2 is recommended for new deployments.

Performance Tiers

Storage accounts can be configured with different performance tiers to meet varying workload demands:

  • Standard: Uses hard disk drives (HDDs) and is suitable for workloads that don't require extremely low latency. It's cost-effective for large amounts of data.
  • Premium: Uses solid-state drives (SSDs) and offers high throughput, low latency, and high IOPS. It's ideal for I/O-intensive workloads, databases, and mission-critical applications.

Access Tiers for Blobs

For Blob storage within GPv2 and BlockBlobStorage accounts, you can configure access tiers to optimize costs based on data access frequency:

  • Hot: Optimized for frequently accessed data. Higher storage costs but lower access costs.
  • Cool: Optimized for infrequently accessed data. Lower storage costs but higher access costs. Data stored in the cool tier must be stored for at least 30 days.
  • Archive: Optimized for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements. Lowest storage costs but highest retrieval costs and latency (can take hours). Data stored in the archive tier must be stored for at least 180 days.

Creating a Storage Account

You can create an Azure Storage account through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or REST APIs.

Using Azure Portal:

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal.
  2. Search for "Storage accounts" and select it.
  3. Click "+ Create".
  4. Fill in the required details: Subscription, Resource group, Storage account name, Region, Performance, Redundancy, and Account kind.
  5. Review and create the account.

Using Azure CLI:

az storage account create \
  --name mystorageaccountname \
  --resource-group myresourcegroup \
  --location eastus \
  --sku Standard_LRS \
  --kind StorageV2

Managing a Storage Account

Once created, you can manage your storage account through the Azure portal or programmatically. Common management tasks include:

  • Configuring access keys and shared access signatures (SAS).
  • Setting up networking (firewalls and virtual networks).
  • Managing containers, blobs, file shares, queues, and tables.
  • Configuring lifecycle management policies for blob access tiers.
  • Enabling static website hosting.

Security Considerations

Azure Storage provides robust security features:

  • Authentication: Shared Key authorization, Azure AD authentication for supported services.
  • Authorization: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Shared Access Signatures (SAS).
  • Encryption: Data is encrypted at rest by default using AES-256. You can also manage your own keys with Azure Key Vault.
  • Network Security: Firewall rules, virtual network service endpoints, private endpoints.
  • Secure Transfer: Enforce HTTPS for all communications.

Monitoring Storage Accounts

Monitor your storage account's performance, availability, and usage using Azure Monitor and Azure Storage analytics. Key metrics include:

  • Transaction count
  • Latency
  • Availability
  • Capacity
  • Network In/Out